Haplotype associations with quantitative traits in the presence of complex multilocus and heterogeneous effects.

ABSTRACT: In genetic mapping of complex traits, scored haplotypes are likely to represent only a subset of all causal polymorphisms. At the extreme of this scenario, observed polymorphisms are not themselves functional, and only linked to causal ones via linkage disequilibrium (LD). We will demonstrate that due to such incomplete knowledge regarding the underlying genetic mechanism, the variance of a trait may become different between the scored haplotypes. Thus, unequal variances between haplotypes may be indicative of additional functional polymorphisms affecting the trait. Methods accounting for such haplotype-specific variance may also provide an increased power to detect complex associations. We suggest ways to estimate and test these haplotypic variance contrasts, and incorporate them into the

SUBMITTER: Shibata K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2700858 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature